


center and guide

by Eglantine



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2017-12-09 10:04:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eglantine/pseuds/Eglantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I swore I'd never write modern AU... and then I did. A collection of more-or-less unrelated Combeferre/Courfeyrac ficlets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. five things that are always true

five things that are always true 

1\. When Combeferre comes to Paris, seventeen years old, he is gawky and gangling, more length to his limbs than his body seems able to control. A year later, when he meets Courfeyrac, he has grown into himself some, like a sketch filled out. Courfeyrac is smaller, handsomer, already so entirely himself that sometimes Combeferre (Combeferre, who would never believe now that he would fight someday on two barricades and a dozen accidental backroom brawls, would raise his voice over a crowd and they would listen to him) is almost jealous.

2\. “And all this time? Why didn’t you ever say?”  
“It didn’t seem important.”

3\. At meetings they never mean to find themselves alone in conversation, but they always seem to. Courfeyrac starts to notice it, that by the end of the day it will always be them leaned over a table in debate, just them, and everyone else will have drifted off to their own conversations. He points it out once, and Combeferre looks vaguely surprised, then asks if that’s Courfeyrac’s way of conceding that he has lost the argument.

4\. “Tell me something you notice.”  
(Courfeyrac answers, his hands, his hair, his nose.)  
(Combeferre answers, his lips, his ears, the small of his back.)

5\. Combeferre watches the rag in his hand turn slick and scarlet within moments and he quietly sets it aside. Courfeyrac’s hands scramble for purchase on the pavement and Combeferre stills them, presses both of Courfeyrac’s hands between both of his. Courfeyrac gasps something Combeferre thinks might be make it stop though it’s hard to hear and he isn’t sure, but he says anyway yes, he says, yes, it will stop.


	2. care & keeping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern, fluffy h/c

It was not unusual for Combeferre to disappear into his studies without a word for a day or two or sometimes three. But it was unheard of for him to miss a meeting without an explanation, so once they had adjourned, Courfeyrac set off for Combeferre’s apartment. The door was unlocked (as usual, for ease of random friend drop-ins), so he slipped inside and made his way back to the bedroom, where he found Combeferre hunched over his desk, asleep, snoring wheezily. Courfeyrac called his name softly, and Combeferre shot upright.

“The meeting,” he gasped, and stumbled to his feet, muffling a fit of coughing in his elbow as he scrambled to gather up his papers and to try and locate his shoes in the clutter of the room. He seemed surprised when he came suddenly face-to-face with Courfeyrac, who had planted himself in the doorway, blocking it. Combeferre looked as if all the color had been drained from his face, save his pink-rimmed eyes and red and running nose. Ignoring Combeferre’s protests, Courfeyrac took Combeferre by the shoulders and guided him over to the bed.

“You look like shit,” Courfeyrac said, tossing Combeferre’s pajamas at him. “You sound like shit. And I’m going to venture that you feel like shit.”

“I feel fine,” Combeferre insisted, voice raspy and low. Courfeyrac resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“I’m going to make some tea,” he said.

 

Combeferre was a very organized person, it was just that this organization did not tend to extend to physical objects like dishes. The kitchen counter was littered with plates which had been washed, but not put away, plus the remains of what looked like some kind of experiment. Courfeyrac had finished tidying all this up and was starting on the tea when he heard a suspicious clattering from the bathroom. He set aside the half-filled kettle and went to the bathroom, where he was greeted by the still-not-pajama-clad Combeferre, who at least had the grace to look guilty.

“Didn’t I put you in bed?” Courfeyrac asked.

“We’re out of cough medicine,” Combeferre said, gesturing to the cabinet. “I wasn’t just wandering around.”

Courfeyrac narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but nodded. “Fine. Go back to bed. I’ll get some.”

It was, Courfeyrac reflected, the closest he had ever seen Combeferre come to looking sulky, as he shuffled back towards the bedroom.

 

When Courfeyrac returned, Combeferre was in the kitchen.

“I made tea,” he said defensively. He indicated two mugs on the counter.

“I will take your glasses away,” Courfeyrac replied, pointing an accusatory finger. “Then you’ll be too blind to escape.”

Combeferre laughed, which immediately dissolved into a fit of coughing. Courfeyrac seized the opportunity to steer Combeferre over to the couch and drape a blanket on top of him. When Combeferre had finally caught his breath, Courfeyrac handed him a mug of tea, then settled down on the couch as well. They sipped at their tea in a silence broken only by Combeferre’s coughing. He was shivering, too, Courfeyrac noticed. He set aside his tea and leaned in to feel Combeferre’s forehead, but Combeferre batted his hand away with a scowl. Courfeyrac sat back, part amused and part exasperated.

“It’s no more than you’d be doing for me, you know,” Courfeyrac said.

“It’s fine, alright?” Combeferre said, uncharacteristically snappish. “I don’t need help.”

“Do you want me to go, then?”

“Yes. I do.”

This was not the answer Courfeyrac had been anticipating. One of his law professors’ mantras was to never ask a question you didn’t know the answer to, and Courfeyrac suddenly had a new appreciation for why. Having asked, of course, reason and manners followed that he would now have to get up and leave.

  
He didn’t, of course. In fact, he moved closer, scooting along the couch and laying a hand gently on Combeferre’s blanket-swaddled knee. Combeferre gave him a dark look.

“I know you can take care of yourself,” Courfeyrac said carefully. “But I want to help you. Everyone needs a bit of help sometimes.”

“I don’t,” Combeferre said, scrubbing his hands over his face. “I can take care of myself. I can make my own tea. Helping people is my job, that’s what I do, that’s what I like to do and I don’t like being— being coddled and poked at and fussed over and I don’t like being helped because it makes me feel helpless and—small.”

  
Combeferre looked startled by the turn his train of thought had taken, and he burrowed quickly into the blanket and refused to meet Courfeyrac’s eye. Courfeyrac was silent for a moment.

“Don’t feel small,” he said quietly. He gently brushed Combeferre’s hair away from his forehead, and Combeferre didn’t stop him. “It doesn’t mean I think less of you, because I want to look after you. And it doesn’t make you any less to need it.”

Combeferre looked up. “I—” He coughed weakly and shook his head, looking down at his hands.

“No, what is it?” Courfeyrac prompted. Combeferre rubbed at his nose, then looked up, expression woeful.

“I feel awful.”

Courfeyrac grinned and spread his arms. “Come here.”

“No, I’m contagious—” Combeferre protested, but Courfeyrac wrapped his arms around him anyway and leaned back, so that he was reclining against the arm of the couch, Combeferre’s head resting against his chest. Combeferre squirmed, and Courfeyrac rubbed his back gently. He felt the tension in Combeferre’s shoulders gradually melt away, his breathing slowing until eventually he fell asleep. And when Combeferre woke himself with deep, painful-sounding coughing, he let Courfeyrac rub his back until it stopped, and he didn’t insist on measuring out the cough syrup himself (though Courfeyrac could tell he wanted to), and finally allowed himself to be led back to his bed. When Courfeyrac made a show of tucking him in, Combeferre rolled his eyes and sighed, but when Courfeyrac went to turn out the light, he heard him murmur a soft, shy, “Thanks.”


	3. burning bright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Genderswapped Courfeyrac. With a guest appearance by Joly.

 There’s an obvious scientific basis to the notion that opposites attract, Combeferre thinks. But as far as he’s aware, personalities don’t carry an electrical charge and polarity, therefore, cannot explain what draws himself, Enjolras, and Courfeyrac together. 

            He and Enjolras are fast, easy friends. The first time they speak it seems plain that they understand each other, and they go on understanding each other. It’s a friendship which never requires effort. It’s the sort of friendship that can spend most of its time in silence, which Combeferre, who generally prefers not to speak until he has something to say, appreciates.

            And then, of course, there’s Courfeyrac.

            Though it seems unlikely to those who know them separately, there’s a peculiar rightness to Enjolras and Courfeyrac when they are together. At first, of course, Combeferre suspects that Courfeyrac was rather stunned to find an apparently heterosexual man on whom her not inconsiderable charms had absolutely no effect. Which, he theorized (stop theorizing about your friends,  he thinks), was in the end what Courfeyrac liked about him. And when the two of them were together, for all that Courfeyrac went to parties and laughed so loud you could hear it from across busy streets, whereas Enjolras tended in general to keep to himself and presented a stoicism which seemed (but was not, Combeferre knew) cold—when the two of them were together, they were just so—bright. In all senses of that word, bright, in that they were both dazzlingly clever and both stunningly handsome and both confident in a way that radiated outwards, that caught your attention and drew it in and never let it go.

            And then Combeferre. Somewhere, he thinks, in between. As bright, he knows, in terms of cleverness, but somehow not quite so luminous.

*

            “You never call me by my first name,” Courfeyrac says, kicking idly at Combeferre’s shin under the table. There’s no point in telling her to stop—she’s an incorrigible fidget, and doesn’t even realize that she’s doing it.

            “No one calls you by your first name,” Combeferre replies, trying to keep his attention at least half-fixed on his book.

            “Do you even remember it, though?” she asks.

            “Margaux,” he replies, too quickly. He peers over the edge of the book to see if Courfeyrac noticed his slightly-less-than-casual speed.

            She’s grinning.

*

            Honestly, though (there are days he’s tempted to make an announcement at a meeting), the thing with the moths is completely overblown. Yes, he doodles moths. Yes, they are fairly accurate in terms of anatomy, and yes, he does it from memory. But he’s not  _obsessed with moths._ ( _Bahorel._ )

            “But I mean, moths of all things,” Courfeyrac says. “Just—what is it? The feelers? They’re fuzzy? I mean, why not butterflies? Or bees?”

            “I don’t know, I assume I was looking at a picture of a moth one day and decided to see if I could draw it.”

            “You don’t even  _remember?_ Your defining trait, and you don’t even  _remember_ where it came from?”

            “The moths are my defining trait?” Combeferre says, unable to keep some horror from his voice.

            “Uh-huh,” Courfeyrac says, nodding and leaning back in her chair. “That’s how I introduce you to people. I say, this is my friend Combeferre, he really likes moths. And if someone’s like, Combeferre, what sort of guy is he? I say, oh he likes moths. If you asked me to write you a job reference, I’d just write MOTHS in giant letters.”

            Combeferre sighs and rolls his eyes and looks down at the table to try and hide his grin. “I’m going to burn all the moths, I swear.”

            “You can’t!” she cries, seizing his hands. He looks up to see her looking beseechingly at him. The expression is disarmingly genuine.  “I love the moths.”

 

            (The next day, in the back of a lecture about pediatric rheumatology, Joly’s face achieves heretofore unreached levels of  ‘are-you- _kidding-_ me.’

            “She said you are the moths, and then she said she loves the moths.  _Combeferre_. You’re supposed to be the smart one, for goodness’ sake.”)

*

            There are a lot of factors to consider. He wonders, briefly, if he should make a list, then remembers that that would be utterly pathetic. But it’s factors like Courfeyrac is one of his best friends, and if a person is your best friend and another person is a woman you are attracted to, if you were to draw a hypothetical Venn diagram of these two women would the shaded space between where they overlap in fact be labeled romance or perhaps even love.

            And what  _is_  love, anyway?

          (Sometimes Combeferre wishes his brain had an off button.)

          “What is love?” Courfeyrac asks, and Combeferre realizes that he had, in fact, spoken the question out loud. “I don’t know. Apparently it’s when a chubby winged baby spears you with an arrow.”

          “Some snails produce a dart that they spear one another with before mating,” Combeferre said. “They’re called love darts.”

          Courfeyrac just stares at him for a moment, utterly incredulous, then bursts out laughing. It’s really remarkable, Combeferre thinks, how when Courfeyrac laughs, even if it’s at something you’ve said or done, it never feels mocking and one never need feel embarrassed. You always feel like you’re in on the joke, too. When her laughter subsides, Courfeyrac rests her chin in her hands and looks thoughtfully at him.

          “I wonder if I should help you,” she says. “Or if I should wait and see how long it takes.”

          Combeferre feels his cheeks going red. “How long what takes?”

          “Oh, Jesus. No.” She hops off her chair and comes round to his side of the table. “I don’t have that long to wait.”

*

(“And then she kissed you? If you’re asking if that means she fancies you, Combeferre, I swear to God—”)


	4. observations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some mirroring was in order, so... Courfeyrac and genderswapped Combeferre.

Some observations on the subject of Combeferre, by Courfeyrac:

 

First: She’s an expert, a sort of alarmingly skilled expert, at appearing cool and collected in all situations. But he has learned that there’s a tell. There’s one betrayer of her anxiety, no matter how calm she looks, and it’s when she starts twisting the end of her hair (it’s long and thick and dark and she always wears it in a single braid) ‘round her finger.

 

Second: She has a reputation for going on about things when she’s excited about them, about what she learned in lectures that day or the newest outrageous legislation or how cool it will be when there’s commercial space travel—and like when Feuilly starts in about parallels between nineteenth century Poland and Palestine, everyone tunes in or out depending on their mood and smile at each other behind their hands. But he has noticed that she doesn’t go on—not really, not the way he’ll natter on about nothing at all just because he hates silence and likes the sound of his own voice—she only speaks, he has noticed, when she actually has something to say.

 

Third: She and Enjolras are best friends, obviously, but also she is absolutely fascinated by him because he’s the only person she can’t see through. (He suspects that this is because there is nothing to see, that if you see through Enjolras, inside is just Marianne come to life, or maybe a giant tricoleur.)

 

Fourth: The corollary to that is, Enjolras aside, she can see through anyone’s shit.

 

Fifth: So she can see right the hell through him.

 

*

 

“What are you waiting for, exactly?” she asks one day as he sends half-hearted texts to the girl he slept with the night before.

 

“What do you mean?” he asks.

 

“I mean you’re flinging yourself at women with even less discrimination than usual,” she says. “And before you start, _no_ , I’m not _judging_ you, I’m just commenting.”

 

“What do you mean, less discrimination than usual?” he asks, unsure if he should play amused or affronted, then decides that whichever he picks, Combeferre will know that really, he’s just confused.

 

“I mean for the past two weeks I’ve watched you send off text messages with this pained expression of regret. It’s unlike you to regret an encounter so quickly, which suggests either that you’ve lost your touch for identifying women you’ll find more than just superficially attractive, or you’re not paying attention.”

 

Courfeyrac laughs. “Have you been doing a study of me or something?”

 

“I’ve made some observations,” she says, prim and calm. But she catches the end of her braid between her fingers and starts to tug at it. Courfeyrac raises an eyebrow. Combeferre raises an eyebrow in return. Courfeyrac grins.   

 

“You watch me,” she says suddenly. Courfeyrac is taken aback.

 

“What do you mean by that?”

 

“I don’t mean anything. It’s one of my observations,” she says. “I have observed you observing me.”

 

“This is all getting very clinical,” Courfeyrac teases. “We’re meant to be friends, not lab experiments.”

 

"They do seem to be mutually exclusive."

 

“The velocity of your hair twirling is increasing,” he notes. She pulls her hand abruptly away from her hair.

 

“What?”

 

“You’re _nervous_ ,” he says gleefully, grinning. He reaches over and gives her braid a tug—she swats his hand away with a scowl. “What are you nervous about, ma chére ‘ferre? Did your experiment not turn out like you’d hoped?”

 

Her gaze slides down to her shoes, and her hand twitches up towards her hair again, but she seems to remember herself, and tucks her hands into her pockets instead.

 

“You don’t need to mock me,” she says, her voice low and tight. “It’s not the sort of thing one chooses to…”

 

“To what?” he prompts when she trails off. “To feel?” A slight pause. “For me?”

 

“You’re used to it, no doubt,” she says, and he can see the effort it takes for her to raise her eyes to meet his. “Women—and probably men as well, why not?—feeling things that you can’t—” She searches for the word. “—reciprocate.” Finding the proper term seems to steady her, and she continues more confidently: “So you know better than I do what should come next. Maybe it would have been better to pretend it wasn’t true, but that felt dishonest, somehow. And now we can move on from it. I’m sure you know the best way to do that.”

 

“Yeah,” he says. “I do.”

 

 He reaches for her braid and tugs it gently, tugs her closer.

 

*

Sixth: Scientists are great at kissing.


	5. en attendant

Combeferre texts Enjolras: ‘Check the map. A new kettle not far from you.’

 

Enjolras replies: ‘How do you know?

 

Combeferre glances at Courfeyrac, who is shielding him bodily from the police’s view so that he can text discreetly. ‘We’re in it.’

 

Mission completed, Combeferre stuffs his phone in his pocket and directs his attention to Courfeyrac, who is all but vibrating with pent-up energy. There’s no space to pace, otherwise Combeferre has no doubt that he would be. He places a hand on Courfeyrac’s arm, and he jumps.

 

“Sorry,” Courfeyrac says at once.  “I hate this. I hate not being out there helping, I hate being stuck in one place, I hate the looks those police officers give us—”

 

“I know, I know. Come on.” He tugs on Courfeyrac’s wrist, pulling them both to the ground. Not many people are sitting, and it feels oddly dark and private in the forest of other people’s legs. Courfeyrac drums his fingers impatiently against his own knee until Combeferre reaches over to still his hand.

 

“Courfeyrac,” he says firmly. “We’re probably going to be here for a good while, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Don’t be so agitated. People get kettled in during a protest, it happens.”

 

“Not to me,” Courfeyrac insists. “I always get away.”

 

“You’ve never been stuck in one?” Combeferre asks, incredulous. But even has he says it, he realizes that it’s true—Courfeyrac always seems to be the one scampering away just in time, and he can recall spending hours stuck in the heat or the cold with just about everyone except Courfeyrac.  “How’d you get stuck here this time, then?”

 

“Are you hurt?” Courfeyrac asks suddenly, and Combeferre wants to point out that that isn’t an answer, but he knows that it’s better to humor Courfeyrac when he’s in this kind of mood.

 

“No,” he says. “I’m not hurt. Are you?”

 

“You were limping,” Courfeyrac says.

 

“Oh,” Combeferre says, surprised. “I know, I fell, but it’s not— it’s nothing serious.”

 

“Show,” Courfeyrac insists. “You’d make me.”

 

Combeferre smiles a little and shrugs, then carefully rolls up the legs of his pants. It is, like he said, nothing serious— his knees are scraped slightly, but mostly he can tell they’ll bruise badly by the next morning. Courfeyrac looks at them a moment, then leans close and kisses each knee, feather-light. Combeferre shivers, and Courfeyrac looks up at him with that catlike smile.

 

“You were waiting for me,” Combeferre says, in answer to his own previous question.. “That’s why you got caught.”

 

Courfeyrac scoffs and slips his hand into Combeferre’s. “Yes, obviously.”

 

Combeferre gives Courfeyrac’s hand a gentle squeeze. Courfeyrac fidgets (he’s Courfeyrac, he’ll never not fidget), but the hum of anxious energy is gone.

 

“We can only wait,” Combeferre says.

 

“I guess there are worse things,” Courfeyrac replies. 


	6. living in the past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm putting this here not under the Combeferre/Courfeyrac umbrella but under the "things I swore I'd never write oh god I am not giving this its own work" umbrella. Because it became clear the only way to expunge my frustration with only being able to find modern/reincarnation fic was to turn everyone into ladies. As this is clearly the only worthwhile way to be reincarnated.

“Reincarnation,” Combeferre said. 

“Um,” Courfeyrac replied. She was sitting at the kitchen table, Combeferre stirring a pot on the stove, so the lack of accompanying expression made this very vague conversation starter even harder to interpret. “Are you giving over medicine for, er, Buddha?” 

“What are your opinions on the subject?” Combeferre said with faint exasperation, as if it should have been obvious that this was the intended question. “I was in the clinic today and one of the nurses was talking about how her whole family is convinced that her niece has memories of a past life.”

“That sounds… This is going to be like the ghost thing, isn’t it.” 

“No!” she protested. “There was no _ghost thing,_ I just said one time—literally one single time—that I don’t _not_ believe in ghosts and then you and Bahorel went absolutely mad over it.” 

“—right. Sorry, what’s your point?” 

“I don’t have a point, I’m asking your opinion. On reincarnation.”

“—oh.” Courfeyrac paused. The question made her unaccountably uncomfortable. She didn’t like the thought of having been someone else— that her self somehow wasn’t of her own making. But she still couldn’t resist asking, “How do they know?”

“She’ll point out buildings they’ve never seen, for example, and say things like, ‘I’ve been there,’ or ‘That’s where Papa works,’ was one of them, I think. Of course, it’s entirely possible that she’s just operating under some other, toddler logic that makes perfect sense to her.” 

“So…” Courfeyrac hesitated slightly. “Like that time we were wandering around the Hôtel de Ville and turned onto some random street and you said, ‘It’s nice to be back here’?”

“I don’t remember that at all,” Combeferre said, surprised, turning at last. “When was it? When we first came to Paris?” 

“Yeah,” Courfeyrac said.

“Huh. What street was it?”

Courfeyrac pretended to think about it for longer than she really required. In fact, it had been something she’d always meant to ask, one of those questions that you put off until it’s just been too long to be natural, but you still can’t forget it. It had stuck in her head for some reason, no reason she could hope to explain.

“Rue de la Verrerie,” she said. 

*

“It was possibly the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard,” Joly shouted through the bathroom door, her voice slightly muffled in such a way that Lesgle could only assume she was now toweling off her hair. She had been ranting about this incident from the moment she arrived home, and Lesgle had definitely spaced out somewhere in the middle. Therefore lacking a proper response, now that the story finally seemed to have reached an end, Lesgle decided to go with the classic topic-change tactic.

“Should I try and dye my hair again?”

“Please don’t,” Joly said with a shudder, stepping out of the bathroom, towel-clad. “The sink is still sort of a funny color from last time, and your hair is only just growing back.”

“Well that’s just it, though,” Lesgle said, leaning over to try and see past Joly into the bathroom mirror. Aged twenty-five, Lesgle had already gone almost completely grey. Thanks to a fairly recent dye mishap, it was now cropped short, and had an interesting tendency to stick up in defiance of all attempts to either smooth or style it. “I’m always afraid when we’re out together that people will think I’m your mom.” 

“Don’t worry about that,” Joly said, flopping down onto the couch at Lesgle’s side. “Those trousers keep you from looking respectable enough to have me as a child. But this kid though—”

“What about it?” 

“It was dead creepy!” Joly cried. “That one resident— I can’t ever remember her name—she was fascinated. I was horrified.” 

“Is this the resident you fancy?”

“I don’t—what? I don’t fancy any of the residents, thank you. Most of them are jerks, actually.”

“But there’s that one you’re always talking about…”

“Oh—well—yes, it’s that one, but—I only bring her up because she’s apparently this literal genius who was offered spots in all the properly lucrative fields, but for some reason is with us instead…”

“Oh, so it’s envy.” 

“It’s not envy,” Joly said, indignant. “ _You’re_ envious because I fancy her.”

“Oh-ho, so you do!” 

“No! No, I was—oh never mind!” 

There was a pause. Lesgle flopped sideways to lean her head against Joly’s shoulder. Joly let out a huff of frustration, but didn’t move away. 

“I sort of like the idea of past lives,” Lesgle said. “Karma, you know.”

“You believe in karma? With your luck?” Joly grinned and Lesgle swatted at her arm. 

“Karma’s farther reaching than that,” she said. “Across multiple lifetimes, not just months or years within one. I like that idea, that this one life isn’t our only shot.” 

*

“You are invited, you know,” Lesgle said later that evening. Her preparations for the event in question, a gathering with some friends from law school, had consisted so far of trying to locate her suddenly-missing keys. 

“Are you just saying that because you’ve lost your key and want me to come and bring mine?” Joly asked. 

“No!” she protested, which was, to be fair, mostly also true. “It’s because it’ll be nice if you’re there. Courfeyrac’s good fun. But also I don’t know her well yet, so if it gets hideously awkward, you can pretend to come over poorly and we can escape.”

Joly snorted. “I don’t think you’ve ever had an awkward conversation in your life. Anyway, I don’t want to barge in if you’re all going to be going on about law student things and ceaselessly complaining about that Professor Blondeau person.”

“I don’t go to class, so I’d have trouble keeping up in that conversation,” Lesgle said cheerfully. Deciding to abandon the effort to find her keys, she flopped down on the floor beside the door to start pulling on her shoes. “Anyway, I think Courfeyrac’s flatmate will be there too, so you won’t be all alone.”

“Fine,” Joly said with an exaggerated sigh. Lesgle tossed over her shoes and Joly just barely managed to catch them before they smacked her in the head. Lesgle grinned guiltily. Joly rolled her eyes and said, “I’d throw this back, but I’m sure I’d somehow kill you by accident.”

“That would happen,” Lesgle agreed brightly. “That’s probably what happened in my past life. You killed me, and now you’re forced to atone for it by spending all your time with me.” 

“That would make perfect sense,” Joly said solemnly, pulling on her jacket. “This relationship smacks of nothing so much as atonement for past sins. Do you think that’s how it works?” she asked after a small pause. “You meet the same people across lives? Surely that’s statistically improbable.”

“We’re talking about souls, I don’t think statistics really apply,” Lesgle laughed. “But that is something that people seem to think happens, right? I feel like there was some bad movie about that. Lovers finding each other across lives and centuries and all that.”

“I do prefer to base my philosophical beliefs on mediocre films.” 

Lesgle vowed to conduct further research (on the internet) but the effort was swiftly thwarted by their descent into the metro. When they emerged, it was a short trip to Courfeyrac’s apartment. Lesgle rang, and without asking who was there, whoever was upstairs buzzed them in.

“God, she’s painfully posh, isn’t she,” Joly said as they made their way up the stairs to Courfeyrac’s flat. The building— not to mention the neighborhood itself— was unquestionably nicer than their own.

“Yes, we’re only here for the champagne and caviar.” 

This impression was quickly dismantled as they rounded the corner and found Courfeyrac already waiting in the open doorway, a bright and eager expression on her face, her reddish curls in a halo of disarray. Apparently undecided about the tone of her own party, she was wearing a dress and stockings, but no shoes, and was armed with a glass of wine in each hand. 

“I saw you out the window,” she said brightly. “Who’s this?” 

“Joly,” Lesgle said. 

“Well, I agree,” Courfeyrac said with a catlike grin. “But what’s your name?”

“Oh, I’ve never heard that one before,” Joly said, deciding to risk assuming that Lesgle would not befriend someone who did not appreciate sarcasm—or perhaps, more accurately, such a person would never befriend Lesgle. “I’ll take that wine as a forfeit, thank you.” 

“I have this feeling we’ll get along splendidly,” Courfeyrac said, handing over the wine at once. “Come in, come in both of you. You’re the first ones here— my flatmate is somewhere— Combeferre!” 

Joly stopped short and Lesgle bumped into her, by some miracle avoiding spilling wine all over them both.

“Alright?” she asked.

“You,” Joly said blankly, staring at Courfeyrac’s flatmate, who was staring back. She was quite tall, bespectacled, and looked as bewildered as Joly. “You— she— we know each other from the hospital. This is, the, uh, um— that resident I told you about,” Joly added, turning to Lesgle, though Lesgle could see at once that this was to hide a rapidly rising blush. “The one I was talking to today.” 

“I’m Lesgle,” she said brightly, bursting forward so that Joly could beat a casual retreat. Combeferre looked faintly relieved, confirming Lesgle’s suspicions that, just as Joly could never remember the resident’s name, she did not know Joly’s. “Joly did indeed mention you just this evening.” 

“Combeferre,” she replied, offering a hand to shake. “Courfeyrac has spoken about you as well, of course.”

“That’s—really, really weird,” Courfeyrac said with a odd expression that quickly transformed into a laugh. “What are the odds? And no, Combeferre, I’m not asking for an actual calculation.” 

Someone ringing the buzzer cut off Combeferre’s protestations that she would never even try to volunteer such information. Courfeyrac bounded off to answer it, and Combeferre led the other two over to the couch. 

“So you’re the one who was talking about reincarnation,” Lesgle said. Combeferre looked startled.

“Well— yes. That’s been the topic of the hour over here as well. It was a rather odd conversation, wasn’t it?” Combeferre asked, this last directed to Joly, who made a face. 

“It terrifies me. I can’t say why. Like those weird but horrifying images in horror movies, I guess-- just the idea of this little girl pointing at buildings she’s never seen and recognizing them— ugh.” She shivered again. 

“I like it,” Lesgle said. 

“I find it terribly interesting, I must admit,” Combeferre agreed. She seemed about to elaborate, but was interrupted by a sound of dismay from the approaching Courfeyrac.

“Don’t tell me we’re back on this subject,” she groaned. She had a small crowd in tow. Two were fellow law students whose acquaintance Lesgle had made at the same time as Courfeyrac’s, earlier that year: Bahorel, already reaching for the wine; and Enjolras, who was both preternaturally beautiful and unflinchingly focused, which Lesgle thought was a rather unjustly bounteous combination of good qualities. Given that she, Bahorel, and Courfeyrac were all inveterate slackers, Lesgle still wasn’t entirely sure why Enjolras put up with them. But clearly she and Combeferre knew each other well: Enjolras made a beeline, perching on the arm of the couch at Combeferre’s side. Introductions were made all around, and the others were identified as Feuilly, a friend of Enjolras’s, and Prouvaire, a friend of Bahorel’s. And at the back of the small knot of people—

“Grantaire!” Joly cried with delight. “If Lesgle had said you were going to be here—”

“I didn’t know!” Lesgle protested. “I forgot that you and Courfeyrac were friends.” 

“For my sins,” Grantaire said. Lesgle slid off the couch and onto the floor to make room. “Oh, don’t do that, I’ll take the floor.”

“No, it’s better this way,” Lesgle insisted. “Ever since I sat down I’ve been haunted by the image of when I inevitably spill this wine all over. Surely, Courfeyrac, you know better than to invite me to a place with a cream-colored couch?” 

“Now what is this subject Courfeyrac is so eager to avoid?” Bahorel asked. 

*

“I refuse to talk about this unless I am granted temporary custody of one entire bottle of wine,” Courfeyrac said, hoping that sufficient melodrama would change the subject. She just didn’t like it, she didn’t want to talk about it anymore—and for some reason, the prospect of doing so in this group made the prospect feel even less silly and light than before. Lesgle’s friend Joly, she noticed, was wearing a faintly distressed expression that matched how Courfeyrac felt. 

“Take it, then,” Lesgle said, seizing the bottle off of the coffee table and proffering it to Courfeyrac. “The subject Courfeyrac so devoutly wishes to avoid, comrades, is reincarnation. The if, and if so, the how. For example, as Joly and I were discussing earlier, do souls gravitate towards one another across lifetimes?” 

“The Yoruba think so,” Prouvaire said. It was the first time she had spoken beyond saying her name, and her voice was high and light. All eyes on her, she pressed on, but blushed as she did so. “Reincarnation, in their view, is confined within families. A relative dies and is reborn into someone in the next generation, basically.” 

“See, this scuttles my theory that Joly is forced to know me as punishment for killing me in a past life.” 

“Maybe you owe each other a debt,” Prouvaire said, gaining in confidence. “That’s a Hindu belief, that souls— I mean, the general equivalent of what I’d call a soul, I guess that’s a very Judeo-Christian thing to call it— anyway— that souls that owe each other a debt will be reborn as friends or relatives in order to repay it.” 

“See, you do owe me a debt,” Lesgle said solemnly. “A debt of my life.”

“Sorry, why have we concluded that I murdered you?”

“You’ve clearly given this subject a lot of thought,” Combeferre said, and Prouvaire shrugged and blushed brighter. But this, to Courfeyrac’s delight, was enough to make the topic fizzle, and Bahorel jumped in to inquire about the quality of a new bar that had opened near the law school. Lesgle rose to get more wine, Combeferre asked Enjolras a different question, and the conversation splintered naturally into smaller groups. 

“You don’t like the thought of past lives either, then?” Joly asked, sidling up next to her. Courfeyrac shrugged.

“It creeps me out,” she said. 

“Me too!” Joly agreed fervently, plainly thrilled to have finally found an ally. “I mean, I’m terrified of dying, obviously, but the one single solace in the idea is that at least everything is done. Now you’re telling me there are things to worry about after?”

Courfeyrac burst out laughing and clapped Joly on the shoulder, a strangely jovial gesture she was pretty sure she’d never previously made in her life. It matched, perhaps, the inexplicable feeling of _that’s so like you_ , a feeling that made no sense given that she’d met Joly about fifteen minutes before. 

“It makes me more anxious about what came before,” Courfeyrac admitted. “That I’m somehow responsible for what someone who isn’t me did? And I am who I am because of that person, not because of myself?” She shrugged again, as if she could physically dislodge her discomfort. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Did you know Combeferre believes in ghosts?” 

*

Courfeyrac had expected the gathering to be relatively brief. After all, she, Enjolras, and Lesgle had only recently met, plus Combeferre and others who knew each other even less—she’d suspected they’d manage a bottle of wine and some cheese, complain about all their professors and classmates, and then run out of things to say and go home. But they didn’t go home. More importantly, no one seemed to run out of things to say. They all got along swimmingly, in a way that Courfeyrac, well experienced in managing the dynamics of parties, was frankly startled by. After a couple of hours, Bahorel and Prouvaire went to get more wine, and a couple hours after that, everyone was quite pleasantly drunk and strewn about the living room in what had settled into a contented silence. 

Courfeyrac herself was slouched between Enjolras and Combeferre on the sofa, which she felt vaguely guilty about hogging, being the host, but everyone else seemed perfectly comfortable, so she didn’t bother to move. Joly and Lesgle, for example, were curled up together on the armchair opposite, thereby apparently answering the question of ‘friend or girlfriend?’ which had been plaguing Courfeyrac all night. It was less the fact of their cuddling that provided an answer— Prouvaire, for example, was gazing up at the ceiling with her head in Bahorel’s lap, and Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac herself were hardly observing the boundaries of one another’s personal space— but that Joly seemed to have fallen asleep, and the expression on Lesgle’s face as she rested her cheek against Joly’s hair. 

“We should do this more often,” Enjolras said. Both Combeferre and Courfeyrac looked over at her in surprise. Though she was perfectly capable of being a quite charming person, and took a genuine interest in other people’s ideas, Courfeyrac had always gotten the sense that Enjolras had little real liking for informal social situations. Almost defensively, at the sight of their startled expressions, Enjolras said, “We seem to all make a good group.”

“You’re only saying that because no one told you to shut up when you started ranting about Marine Le Pen.” 

“That’s a very good reason,” Enjolras said, completely sincerely, and Courfeyrac couldn’t help but laugh. 

“Does the transitive property apply to friendship?” Combeferre, quite drunk, mused. “Because we get along, it necessarily follows that our friends would get along with one another? Only not, because that Pontmercy person you brought by, I didn’t much like him.” 

“I don’t think he’s entirely hopeless,” Enjolras said placidly. Courfeyrac snorted.

“That is a tragically apt description of him. Not entirely hopeless.”

“I like him!” Lesgle protested from across the room. “I think he’s funny, like a baby animal is funny— amusement tinged with pity. I envy his hair.” 

“This has become silly,” Combeferre said. 

“I have a proposition,” Bahorel piped up from the floor. “I propose an overthrow of the social order. By this I mean— I want a turn on the couch. It will be a violent uprising if necessary.” 

“Revolt if you must, but let’s be civilized,” Combeferre said. That shiver, that same shiver of something like recognition passed through Courfeyrac again, but now that she was drunk and had her legs slung across Enjolras’s lap it didn’t seem as frightening as it had before. To even call it a shiver seemed wrong, for now it felt warm and, if not quite comfortable, then—fine. Safer than it had. And before she could contemplate it further, she found herself being dragged by the ankle off the couch. It was with some surprise she registered that Prouvaire was doing the tugging.

“I never would have taken you for a violent revolutionary,” she said. 

“The meek shall inherit, and all that,” Feuilly said as she stepped over both of them and immediately claimed Courfeyrac’s former space. 

“Perhaps we should go,” Joly said, who had been roused and relocated to the floor so that Grantaire could drape herself across the armchair, sitting sideways, her knees hitched over one of the arms. “I feel funny. Do my cheeks feel hot?”

“Yes,” Lesgle replied. “Because you’re very, very drunk.” 

“We’ll go,” Joly said decisively, and proceeded immediately to make absolutely no effort to do so. 

The revolution thus bloodlessly accomplished— Grantaire on the armchair, Bahorel, Feuilly, and Prouvaire on the couch— companionable silence settled again, broken occasionally by Joly’s insistence that they were about to go really, they were going to go now, okay they were going for real this time. 

“Oh, just stay. Everyone just stay. We’re together and it’s been so long,” Courfeyrac said— it made no sense, it made _no sense_ , she thought— but no one disputed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (i confess i find the lesbian adventures of joly and lesgle a sorely tempting prospect)


End file.
